Council’s hands tied on CPOs for greenway negotiations

Galway County Council had no powers to take Compulsory Purchase Orders off the table when negotiating with landowners, after a national code of practice was adopted for rolling out greenways.

The director of services in the infrastructure and operations unit Derek Pender said it was the ‘hope and intent’ of the Council not to have to exercise their powers to take land for the greenway between Ballinasloe and Galway by CPO.

He told the Loughrea area meeting that during the public consultations process, 330 individual submissions had been received to the online portal and 100 were relating to the Athenry to Oranmore spur.

A total of 270 letters had been lodged ‘categorically denying us access to land’, although the majority – 230 – of these were for outside the preferred route area.

A code of best practice had been signed off by the three major farming organisations after negotiations with the Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and the Department of Transport.

This laid out the compensation that would be paid to landowners, which involved a land acquisition fee as well as a ‘greenway sustainability payment’, which would be split into two payments, based on the length of land affected.

Half would be for an early sign-up contract, payable when planning permission is granted, the second would be handed over when the ‘ribbon was cut’.

Several Loughrea Municipal District councillors urged the director to remove the possibility of the local authority taking land for the greenway by CPO if agreement could not be reached.

Cllr Ivan Canning (FF) said he was in favour of greenways but the CPO was “like a lump in the throat they just can’t swallow”.

“That card is still in your back pocket – if they don’t agree they feel they will be bullied into by threat of a CPO,” he warned.

Cllr Jimmy McClearn (FG) said while he believed the benefits of a greenway had been ‘totally oversold’, he was adamant that a CPO was necessary or else a handful of people could scupper the entire project.

“There are people out there who want to create fear and anxiety and they don’t have land on the route. We should be honest: if there is no CPO there is no greenway and all the money spent will be wasted.”

He recalled there had been an agreement during the last process to create a greenway that there would have to be 90% agreement before the introduction of a CPO. He wanted that as a pre-condition during this latest iteration of the amenity.

Mr Pender said he was bound by the code of practice and could not deviate from it, which meant that CPOs were part of the process. The 90% agreement pertained to the last greenway process, which had been scrapped after farmers had united in their opposition to it.

His office would be looking to get 95-97% agreement on the route among local farmers before pressing ahead.

“We are flat out meeting people. We’ve had 300 face to face meetings or phone calls. Let the message go out: we will meet anybody, anywhere, anytime,” he stressed.